The Theodo Group, made up of nine startups specialising in the creation of digital solutions for businesses, called on Wifirst to create a tailor-made connectivity environment adapted to the needs of the 500 employees who make up its ecosystem.
// QUALITY OF SERVICE CHALLENGES
Wide area network and high-performance WiFi
Customised Internet access
The power and availability of the telecom network are among the major challenges of this project. Internet access is obviously a critical service for all 500 employees, and quality must be guaranteed...
In order to guarantee a bandwidth capable of supporting high data consumption and the hosting of numerous cloud services, Wifirst proposed an internet access with a double dark optical fibre delivering up to 2 Gbps per fiber (with the possibility of extension to 10 Gbps).
The main advantage of dark fibre is its flexibility. Wifirst has complete control over throughput, and can scale it without delay to meet Theodo Group's needs. What's more, the entire infrastructure for business connectivity is redundant to guarantee high availability.
Wifirst wireless infrastructure
In addition to Internet access, Wifirst also manages the WiFi solution in service mode. This enables the various uses (guest WiFi and corporate networks) to be unified around a single infrastructure, on the 7 floors that house the group's employees.
// SECURITY CHALLENGES
Ensuring the watertightness of flows between the group's different entities
If different startups are housed in the same building, it is essential that each has its own dedicated private network, particularly for reasons of security and confidentiality.
Wifirst has responded to this challenge by deploying two firewalls that define the network configuration rules for each company: creation of VLANs and definition of the resources to which each VLAN has access (connected objects, content filtering, etc.).
Firewall as a Service
Wifirst worked with the group's IS department to define and implement the Firewall solution best suited to its needs. Upstream work with each IT manager enabled us to integrate the needs of each subsidiary and take into account the specific features of each environment (connected objects, printers, etc.). True to its DNA, Wifirst provides active configuration and supervision of the equipment, including real-time updates for maximum security.
// GOOGLE WORKSPACE INTERCONNECTION
The employee experience at the heart of the system
Like Wifirst, Theodo Group uses the Google Workspace productivity suite (Gmail, Meet, Drive, Calendar, etc.). We wanted them to benefit from a feature we'd already put in place for our own employees: a simplified, secure network connection experience.
Wifirst's engineers deployed and operate a customised authentication service (integrating the Radius brick) that queries the Google user base of the group's various companies, with the aim of offering secure authentication via the 802.1x protocol for WiFi access.
The result is a perfectly seamless employee experience: no shared passwords between employees, no passwords for WiFi or VPN, and a single entry/exit management system via Google Workspace. Simply use your Google account credentials to connect to WiFi and join your company's VLAN. As a bonus for VPN connections, this authentication mode includes dual Google authentication for added security.
"As part of our strong growth, we needed to find solutions both to make the WiFi experience excellent and to greatly increase network security. To succeed in these two challenges we needed an expert, capable of understanding us and proposing creative solutions. Wifirst successfully rose to the challenge."
Fabrice Bernhard
Cofounder & Group CTO
